When Facebook Isn't Enough
by Green-eyesx
Summary: Short story, full of fun, friendship and romance. Find out what happens when you can't rely on Facebook anymore to stalk, I mean check out, your class hottie. Includes gay ex-boyfriends, ice-cream, best friends and one smoking class mate.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I own nada. Not even a car anymore. **

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Right. So you know how everybody has a secret talent? Some people can name all of the states and their capitals in thirty seconds, others know every Super Bowl winner since 1971 and some can even down a jar of jalapeño peppers without dying/throwing up/needing twenty glasses of water? Well, I too have a secret talent; one which is frowned upon by some in society and totally envied by others.

I am 100% convinced that I, Isabella Swan, am the greatest Facebook stalker in the world.

Yeah I know what you're thinking. "What a fucking saddo", "doesn't she have a life?" and "she needs to get out more" but seriously; YOU ALL DO IT! Everyone with a Facebook uses it to perve on other people's pictures, look up your ex-boyfriend's new squeeze or scout out potential meat (note that 'Religious Views: Jedi' does not equal good potential). Basically, we all use Facebook for ulterior motives, I am just not ashamed of this fact and I also happen to be extremely fucking good at it.

I kid you not my friends. Send me a name (first names are pretty important, but surnames I can usually get around) and I will have that sucker up on screen in less than thirty seconds. To be honest, in the past I have been known to find Facebook's without even having a name, however my secrets in this department shall remain hidden. Only my extremely good friends know about my talent (by _extremely _I mean Alice and Rose) and they have enlisted my talents on more than one occasion when asked out on a date. I am proud to say I have saved both Rosalie and Alice from many, many disasters.)

Anyway, now that you know all about my talents I can get on with this story and the day my life was irrevocably altered forever more.

I'd had a bad day. First off I overslept (how cliché?) and then I missed the bus and had to walk, thus ensuring my late arrival to my first class which was literary theories. Now, many people found this class boring, pointless and pretty much used it as a time to catch up on some sleep. I, however, lived for this class, for one reason and one reason only – Mr Edward Cullen.

Yum, yum, yum.

Now I can't really even explain what it was about him but the guy was just _the _most fuck-hot guy I'd ever come across. Obviously he was extremely sexy, all the way from his messy bronze hair down to his doc marten clad toes, but it was so much _more_ than that. From the very first class we'd had together I just couldn't help but feel drawn to him somehow. I'd be sitting there trying to listen to Mr Berty explain something about sentence structure and I literally couldn't help but let my eyes wander over to him. Also I am convinced that on more than one occasion I'd caught him looking at me too. Unfortunately I always looked away too quickly to be sure.

Anyway, here is the next bad thing about my day.

In the past five weeks I'd shared this class with him (yes, I know – five whole weeks!) he had never sat in a different seat than his one on the far right of the room against the window. Well I, being the naturally stealth girl I am, had managed to strategically place myself so that I had the perfect view of him ever since lesson number two. And of course, being late, some blonde haired skank had managed to steal my seat. Whore. So that was basically the nail in the coffin of my day. I knew that if my Edward viewing time had been stolen from me then that was just a bad omen for the rest of the day.

Once again, I know what you're thinking. Why hadn't I just spoken to him, right? Well the honest answer is I DON'T KNOW, OKAY? At the start of the year when I first noticed him I was determined to go over and introduce myself but I just never got the opportunity and five weeks in it just seemed weird to suddenly decide to make friends with him if I didn't have some sort of reason to talk to him. Of course my two best friends had been telling me for weeks to 'man up' and just fucking talk to him but what can I say – when it comes to guys I can be a total pussy.

This admittedly sad and sorry routine has led me to my favourite past time – Facebook stalking Edward Cullen, the hottie from my English class. It is really depressing how much time I spend trawling through his profile, reading his interests, favourite music, favourite films, etc. I'm not going to lie either, a pretty sizeable amount of my time has been spent looking through his pictures. I know to some people this might sound a little creepy but it's really a very worthwhile pursuit. For example, due to my extensive research I am 100% sure that Edward doesn't have a girlfriend which is _extremely _good news. He is listed as 'single' on his relationship status and the only people I see tagged in pictures with him are two guys called Emmett McCarty and Jasper Whitlock (his two best friends I assume?).

So there I was with a glass of wine, happily stalking my little life away after my disappointing day when I got a phone call from Rose.

"_Bella we have a code fucking red going on here – ALICE PUT YOUR PHONE DOWN – I'm bringing Alice over right now. If you don't have ice cream I'm going to scream and you'd best have copious amounts of wine ready cause – ALICE! I'M NOT JOKING! DO YOU WANT ME TO THROW IT OUT OF THE WINDOW BECAUSE I WILL_ – "

"Whoa whoa whoa, calm down a second. What the hell is going on? And why can I hear Alice wailing in the background?"

"_Ergh, it's too long to explain but it's to do with Riley and I'll be there in five minutes so I'll tell you then. To be honest Alice probably could tell you more but I cannot tell a lie; I've already been plying her with alcohol in an attempt to cheer her up so she's not in the best state right now," _Rosalie explained.

"Seriously what the fuck?! What's happened with Riley and why does Alice need cheering up? Have they broken up or something?"

"_Pretty much but there's more to it than that. I'm pulling up outside now_!" And with that she hung up.

So I was pretty confused after that phone call but from what I could work out Alice and her ass-hat boyfriend Riley had broken up, Alice was now upset and drunk (thank you very fucking much Rosalie) and we had an ice cream situation on our hands.

I ran around my apartment quickly pulling out a few bottles of wine and several cartons of ice cream from the freezer, as well as digging out all the chocolate from my cupboards and also my trusty DVD of 'The Notebook' (why couldn't all guys be like Noah Calhoun?).

I'd barely had a chance to sit down when Rose let herself in through my front door, propping an extremely drunk Alice up alongside her.

"Bellaaa!" Alice wailed as she ran towards me, wrapped her arms around my stomach and flopped onto the sofa. "He – broke – up – with – me! Can you believe that?!"

"Hey Bella," called Rose, as she walked towards my kitchen. "Here take her phone," she said, chucking Alice's blackberry to me, "that one can't be trusted with it."

"Uh oh... Hang on a sec Allie, weren't you going to break up with him anyway?"

"Yes! That's what makes this even worse! Now it looks like I'm the jilted one when really he just got in there first! How could he do this to me Bella?! He's such a bastard!"

"Alice, you don't need to be so upset babe! You didn't even like him that much anyway so why are you crying? All you've done is moan about him for the past three months!"

That was definitely the wrong thing to say because as soon as the words left my mouth Alice started to cry harder and Rosalie had to stifle a laugh from the kitchen.

"IT ISN'T FUNNY ROSALIE! I'VE NEVER BEEN SO HUMILITAED IN MY LIFE!"

"Will somebody please explain to me what the hell is going on?!"

"Ask Alice how he broke up with her!" Shouted Rose, as she wandered back into my living room with her mouth full of chips.

"Bella," Alice sniffed, "he, he broke up with me by _text! _What a douche!"

"No way! Oh my God I knew Riley was a total dick but that's low even for him. Rosalie why are you laughing that isn't funny! We need to go round his right now and remove his balls. Stat."

"Yeah _that's _not the funny bit. Ask Alice here what she did after he text her."

I looked at Alice expectantly as she launched into her story.

"Well basically, he text me saying we weren't "right" for each other –what sort of bullshit excuse is that?! – and so obviously I text him back having a _massive _go at him for being such a coward about things and he started apologising saying he was really sorry and everything and I felt a bit bad for him so I sort of... well..._stop laughing Rosalie it isn't a laughing matter..._I-might-have-text-him-saying-sorry-for shouting at him."

"_YOU_ texted _HIM_ saying _SORRY_?! He dumped you through a text message and you reacted totally reasonably and you then thought it'd be a good idea to be _sorry_?! Alice, what the hell is wrong with you?!"

"I DON'T KNOW!" She shouted back at me as Rosalie howled with laughter. "I was drowning my sorrows in tequila and it seemed like a good idea! Just please don't give me back my phone for like a month or something. The bitch on the other sofa is right, I can't be trusted."

"Oh Allie," I said as I wrapped her up in a hug. "Ignore the mean bitchy blonde, she's just bitter because she has a heart of stone."

"I do not! I just know that when somebody dumps me by text _he _should be the one apologizing to _me _and not the other way around! And anyway Alice, we all know Riley is gay so I don't know what you're even upset about," Rosalie replied taking a long draught of her red wine.

"He is _not _gay!"

"He is a bit gay Alice, you have to admit it?" I chimed in, trying not to laugh.

"I mean come _on! _It took him what, six months to sleep with you? And no offence Alice, but you're not exactly a virgin are you?" Rosalie was right. Alice didn't sleep around or anything but when she had a boyfriend it didn't take her long to put out. When we found out her and Riley still hadn't done the deed after six weeks we started to ask her if she'd lost the key to her new found chastity belt.

"Hey! I _do_ take offence to that!" Alice shouted throwing a twiglet at Rose.

"Again Allie, she has a point. Also, how long did it take him to get ready before we went out? You _and _Rose would be ready before he was – I've never seen a man with more immaculate hair in my life."

"He just took care in his appearance! There's nothing wrong with that. Just because you two go out with slobs."

"We don't hun; we go out with guys that like girls – not other guys," Rose laughed out.

"He isn't gay!"

"What about the 'Man Uggs' thing, Alice?" I asked her, laughing along with Rose.

"Oh my god! That was totally gay!" Giggled Rose, agreeing with me.

"You two can both shut up! I will admit that the only men I know that own Man Uggs are gay, _however, _Riley never actually bought them, so ner!" She replied sticking her tongue out at us.

"What_ever _Alice, 'de nile' isn't only a river in Egypt you know!"

"You're such a bad friend Rosalie! I've just been dumped and all you care about is taking the piss out of me!"

"Alice you were dumped by your gay boyfriend that _you _were going to break up with anyway!"

"I hardly think that's the point," Alice sniffed, drinking more of her wine. "Bella, my _bestest _friend, will you please hand me your laptop I need to check Facebook."

"Stalking your ex already Alice?" I teased, handing her my laptop so she could log-in. "That might be a little extreme, even for somebody like me."

"Yeah right, Bella, and how is your stalkee doing? Did you have fun staring at him and being a wimp this morning?" asked Rose.

"I didn't actually; I was fucking late so I lost my seat."

"Unlucky. Serves you right anyway. You should just talk to the guy."

"You know, I think I agree with Alice, you are a bitch Rosalie."

"Pssh, you both love me."

"Bella, what the _hell _is wrong with your internet connection?! This is taking forever to load!" Alice shouted, while repeatedly clicking my laptop on the same link.

"It's not her internet Alice," Rosalie interjected. "It's Facebook, they're revamping it or something and it's causing it all to lag."

"Ah no worries! It just finished load – OH MY GOD! LOOK AT HIS STATUS!"

And there it was in the classic Facebook font.

"**Riley Jackson **just bought his brand new chocolate brown man uggs! Woo!"

"HE GOT THEM! HE ACTUALLY GOT THEM! HAHAHA! ALICE HE IS SO GAY! BELLA BACK ME UP HERE!"

"Can't – speak – laughing – too – hard!" I choked out.

"I love how they aren't even Man Uggs –"

"- or even _brown _Man Uggs –"

"BUT _CHOCOLATE BROWN _MAN UGGS!" Rose and I roared with laughter.

To be fair to her, even Alice had to see the funny side and started to join in with our laughter. This was just the sort of friendship we had. We'd always be there for each other whenever one of us needed another but at the same time we weren't afraid to make fun of each other if the situation called for it. And honestly, this called for it. Obviously Rose and myself would have been more sympathetic if Alice hadn't been bitching and moaning about her boyfriend for the past three months – coincidently when they started sleeping with each other – but she had. Therefore the fact he'd broken up with her and she'd then gone on to apologise to _him _was just hilarious. Also the fact that Rose and I had suspected he wasn't really into the ladies ever since we'd met him just added to the hilarity. Alice's gaydar was renowned for being particularly shit.

Anyway, for the rest of the night we spent our time lounging on my sofa's eating chocolate and ice cream, drinking wine and swooning at 'The Notebook' – all in all it was a pretty good night. Until _it _happened.

There we were happily minding our own business and moaning about how slowly Facebook was taking to do anything when it became extremely clear just _why _Facebook was being such a bitch.

I logged back into my account with the sole purpose of staring at Edward's pictures and happily typed 'Edward Cullen' into the search engine only to be greeted with the following message.

"**Edward's Profile is set to private. If you know Edward, send him a message or add him as a friend."**

"NOOOOOOOOOO! THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING TO ME!"

"What?!" Rose and Alice shouted at the same time, as they grabbed the laptop off of me. They both took one look at the screen and burst out laughing.

"Well I guess we know why Facebook was lagging so much – they've updated the security options to stop creepy stalkers like you!"

"You can be quiet Alice! What happened to you being on my team?!"

"I am! It just means that now you'll actually have to talk to him! This is a good thing," she exclaimed happily. Somebody certainly cheered up quickly. Pfft.

"We've been through this! I can't!"

"Bella stop being a little bitch about things and suck it up. All you have to do is say hello to him," said Rosalie in her ever delicate fashion.

"Really Bella, what's the worst that can happen? He's not interested and you end up in exactly the same position you're in now? Just think about it," Alice smiled at me.

All I did was sigh in return. I was never going to hear the fucking end of this.

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**A/N: So this is chapter one of a fun little story (well I think it is fun anyway, I hope you do too!) of which I'll be updating pretty frequently. Mostly written to help stave off the writer's block but also because a lot of this has happened in real life and it's been floating around my mind for a while! Also want to dedicate this whole story to my **_**amazing **_**friend Le Crepuscule because she hasn't been feeling too great recently! Porcelain Cement will be updating in the next few days too ;)**

**Let me know what you think of it my lovelies!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight but you knew that already didn't you?**

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EPOV

Jesus Christ almighty! My head felt like it had taken a fucking sledgehammer to the back of it. What the fuck did I drink last night? Why, oh _why _do I always agree to let Jasper and Emmett throw parties in my apartment? Who cares if mine was bigger? Who cares if it was closer to campus? Who cares if there was a shop that always served us just around the corner? I'd be 21 in a few weeks and let me tell you, I'd be taking full fucking advantage of that I.D whenever I was around Emmett's place.

Those fuckers. They know exactly how to play me. Get a few beers down Edward, persuade him it'll 'only be a few select people' and then bam. I'm up at...what time was it anyway..._8 o'fucking clock_...the next morning with a thumping hangover. Why the fuck was I even awake?

"_Yeaaaaaah! That's a touchdown mother licker!" _I heard Emmett's deep booming voice floating in from my living room.

"_Like fuck it was. I hate playing Madden with you. You're such a fucking cheater." _And Jasper was still here too. Great. Exactly what I fucking needed.

"Screw you man. You just can't handle defeat from the master that is Emmett 'The Destroyer' McCarty!"

"The Destroyer? How old are you? 12?"

I groaned and tried burying my head in my pillow to drown out their petty argument. Jasper on his own is _fine_, Emmett on his own is also _fine _but throw them together and...well usually it's a fuckload of fun at the time, but not at 8 o'clock on a Sunday morning when I have a massive hangover that is completely their faults.

Their shouts were getting louder so I decided to give up, throw on some sleep pants and tell them to shut the fuck up.

"Dudes!" I shouted as loudly as my head would allow. "Will you quiet the _fuck _down? Have you seen what time it is? Emmett why are there pretzels all over my carpet?"

"Jasper did it," he replied not taking his eyes off the screen.

"No I didn't. You threw them at me when I said Pringles owned pretzels any day of the week."

"Oh yeah," he said with a laugh. "That sounds about right. What's wrong with you anyway Eddy boy? A certain little brunette got your panties in a twist?"

"Eat shit Emmett," I grumbled as I wandered into my kitchen in search of coffee. "And don't think I can't hear you laughing Jasper."

"And how it _literary theory _treating you?" Jasper said as he joined me in the kitchen and started eating cornflakes straight out of the box.

"It's _great_," I said with a fake smile.

"Like fuck it is. I don't know why you're still taking it. It's all bullshit."

"You know why I'm still taking Jasper and where the fuck is all my coffee?" I'd now looked in four cupboards and had no luck.

"EMMETT! WHERE'S THE COFFEE?"

"Jasper. Shut. Up. What part of my head feels like it's been split in two do you not understand?"

"Take a chill pill mon amigo," Emmett said, also joining us in the kitchen. "Check the cupboard under the sink."

"Under the sink is full of bleach and dish cloths. Why would I ever put my coffee in there?" I asked as I bent down and opened the cupboard.

"I don't know. But you must have put it there cause look, there it is!"

"Emmett why did you put my coffee under the sink? You don't even drink coffee."

"I didn't. I have no idea why it's th...oh yeah, I told Vicky to put it there."

I took a deep breath to calm myself down. One, they had persuaded me to have this party. Two, they were the ones that got me absolutely fucked. Three, they woke me up at 8am. Four, I now had no coffee.

"Emmett you're such a cock. Who is Vicky?"

"Vicky! You _know _from last night? Red-head, very _long _legs," he winked.

"Yeah, Edward. Vicky!" Jasper chimed in.

"Look. I don't know what the fuck you gave me to drink last night. But the last thing I can remember is playing beer-pong with Garrett," I said, searching through the rest of my cupboards looking for more coffee.

"Yeah I think there may have been some vodka or tequila –"

"- or both-"

"- mixed in with that beer," Jasper supplied with a little help from Emmett.

"Thanks guys."

"Yeah well you didn't mind at the time. You were having a great time, just like you _always _do when me and Emmett throw you a party."

"Just wait 'til you see the pictures!" _Yeah thanks Emmett, that's just what I need._

"Dude, we only did it to cheer you up because you've been bitching about some essay that you don't even need to do."

_Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. The mother fucking essay._

"Well-fucking-done, Jasper! Look at his face. Why'd you have to go and remind him, you idiot?!" Emmett said throwing _more _of my pretzels at him.

"Excellent. I have an entire essay to write on something I know fuck all about and to top it off I have to do it while feeling like death. Yeah, way to go on cheering me up guys," I said with mock cheerfulness even throwing in a cheesy thumbs up.

"No problem man!" Jasper laughed.

"Edward. Look don't you think it's about time you dropped this act? You're fucking _pre-med, _why are you still taking some bullshit English class?"

"You, just like him," I said, pointing my finger at Jasper, "know exactly why I'm still taking the class. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to Mario's because your fuck of the evening has drank all my coffee and I have a 2,000 word essay to write."

I walked into my room and threw on whatever clothes I could find and grabbed my laptop and stupid English text book. It was Sunday morning; nobody I cared about was going to be up this early. I quickly brushed my teeth, didn't bother to shave and grabbed my keys.

As I was leaving my apartment I heard Jasper shouting to me from the kitchen, "_You can take that class forever if you like. If you don't speak to her it won't make any difference!_"

I slammed the door behind me when I heard Emmett laughing. _Fuckers._

***

So basically there was a girl. Isn't there always I hear you ask? Yeah well, not with me. Not normally anyway. I was Edward Cullen! Jasper Hale, Emmett McCarty and Edward Cullen did not obsess over girls. No girl had ever forced us into celibacy from her mere presence. And if such a girl were to exist we'd have the fucking balls to talk to her.

_Yeah well, apparently not. _

Let me start at the beginning. I'm a pre-med student. Maths, biology, chemistry, even _physics _I can eat for breakfast. They were my thing; it all just came naturally. Unfortunately, reading a fucking time table did not come naturally to me. Seriously, they make those things so fucking confusing; there is no need for half the shit they put on them. If they just left out all the unnecessary rooms and times and –

Sorry. I digress. Anyway, at the start of this semester my time table changed the fuck around. I mean days, times, length of lessons, room numbers – the whole shebang. So there I was, wandering around campus trying to make sense of this piece of paper and I thought I'd figured it out. Biology A in Room 2 of the Hicks Building; Wednesdays at 1pm and Fridays at fucking 9am.

So there I was on the Wednesday (whoever thought it was a good idea to start term halfway through the week was a fucking idiot), pretty damn pleased with myself because I found my room and it was pretty empty so I had my pick of seats which was _very _important.

Now please don't think I'm a big-headed, up-myself jerk – because I _promise_ you I'm not. However, I know I'm not exactly the worst guy in the world to look at and unfortunately a lot of the girls around here only care about that, hence a lot of unwanted attention. Emmett thinks I'm mad for not taking all the action I can and Jasper's too chill about everything to care but I just found it annoying and kind of embarrassing for the most part. Hence why my seat choice was so important. Ladies and gentlemen I present to you the beauty of the window seat. Now you may think I'm just talking shit but you have my solemn vow that when beating off unwanted attention, a window to stare out of while showing your blatant disinterest is completely fucking priceless.

And thanks to my God-like schedule reading skills the best window seat in this room now belonged to yours truly.

So anyway, there I was feeling all pleased with myself and shit and _she _walks in. It took literally all I had not to just stare at her, to be honest I think I was very discrete, and have been for the past five weeks, with the amount of perving I've done on her.

_Isabella Swan. _With her long brown hair, and pretty eyes, and perfect skin, and _shit what am I, a chick? _(For the record I feel as though I should point out that she has the best ass I've ever seen and a pretty awesome rack as well. You know, just saying).

I didn't know what it was about her but I knew I had to talk to her. At that point I didn't even know her name but that wouldn't stop me. I'd never had a problem talking to girls, why should this one be any different right?

Well I'll tell you why.

Five minutes later, instead of Professor Banner walking in like I'd expected, some squat little man with a receding hairline walked in and chalked up 'Mr Berty' on the blackboard. At first I assumed we had a cover. Then the dude opened his mouth and fucked up the rest of my semester.

"Hello, everybody. I trust you all had a satisfactory break over the holidays and now it's time to get start on Literary Theory. If there is anybody here that didn't enrol for this class I suggest you leave now or else you're going to be extremely bored."

All I could think was _fuck. _I didn't want to be in a fucking English class! I knew nothing about books! I had the typically, clichéd messy doctor's handwriting. I hadn't studied literature, let only literary theory, since high school and I just didn't want to be here.

But I couldn't get up and walk out because I'd look like a complete and utter dick in front of the super hot girl because I couldn't even read a schedule. I was also pretty stoked about getting to spend four hours a week in the same room as her. But shit. How could I talk to her now? She'd want to know _stuff _like my major and if she found out I was pre-med then she'd want to know why I was taking an English class (which, it became apparent, most of the English majors didn't even want to be in). I suppose I could have just lied and said I wanted a "varied educational experience" but that would have been complete bullshit and I don't know man, I just didn't want to lie to this girl.

So there I was. Stuck in a class that I hated and didn't belong in, but at the same time didn't want to leave because there was a girl in there that I was wildly attracted to and felt some inexplicable draw towards. The only problem was I had no idea how to talk to this girl without her finding out I was a complete idiot.

_Fuck my life._

After that day I transferred from some random physics class that I didn't actually need to do and into Literary Theory and stocked up on textbooks in the hope that they would help me.

I also put my investigative talents to good use. _Note they are 'investigative' talents – not 'stalking' talents. _

Basically I overheard somebody shout after her one day and stored the fact they called her 'Bella' in my mind. So naturally later that day I headed over to the English Department and looked up the class list for Lit Theory. The only person that could possibly have been her was one 'Isabella Swan' and a quick search on Facebook confirmed that. Unluckily for me everything she could set to private _was _private (I couldn't be bothered with that shit, I had nothing to hide on there) but I could see her profile picture in which she was drinking cocktails with a blonde that looked kind of fierce and some dark haired chick that reminded me of a china doll.

And that has pretty much been my life for the past 5 weeks. I still haven't spoken to her, basically because I'm scared but also because I feel like I've missed the boat when introducing yourself to someone in class is socially acceptable. I haven't slept with any other girls, let alone been on any dates, because they aren't her. I've been scraping by in a class I don't need to go to and I've been keeping on top of my other work as well. Oh and Jasper and Emmett have been ripping me at every opportunity for being pussy whipped by, in Emmett's words, 'a pussy you don't even have access to.' _Nice. _

And that brings me up to now. Sitting in Mario's with, finally, a large latte while I try to work my way through an essay on post-modernism. Give me molecular abnormalities any day over this. I had a _splitting _headache and reading through all of this without my contacts was making it a million times worse. Thank fuck I thought to bring my laptop in its case rather than just carry it because after a little rummaging I found my pair of black rimmed glasses. I didn't usually wear them purely because I found contact lenses easier but I'd never been more thankful to put my glasses on in my life.

A few hours and a couple of hundred pages of reading later I was brought out of my 'objective truth' (what bullshit) haze by the sound of a cup smashing, a slew of hurried apologies and what I can only describe as a cackle of laughter.

I looked up to see the one and only Bella with a bright red face trying to pick up shards of ceramic from the ground, while her dark haired friend was trying to stop her cutting herself and the blonde stood there cackling. What a bitch. Her friend was obviously embarrassed and all she could do was laugh? Bitch reminded me of Emmett. Mario was also hovering around with a dustpan and brush trying to stop Bella from apologizing.

"Mario," the dark haired one said, standing up, shit she was really tiny! "Give me the brush, can you put our coffees into take away cups and Bella will have a new mocha, thanks."

"What?! I don't want to leave!" I heard bitchy-blondie say. "We just got here and this is bound to be _brilliant!_" What was bound to be brilliant? They were in a coffee shop.

"Rose, please?" I heard Bella pleading from the floor. Wow she really wanted to get out of here. Was she _that _embarrassed about the cup? Mario wouldn't care and by the sounds of their conversation with him they were regulars in here anyway.

"Fine," _Rose _as I now knew her to be called huffed. "Alice you owe me five bucks by the way."

Ah short-stuff is called Alice.

"What?! Why?"

"I'll explain when we get back to Bella's."

"Why are we going back to mine? We've been there since Friday night when – _ouch_! Oh _shit _it's bleeding. Guys, do something!"

And there it was, the cut I knew was going to come but was too chicken shit to move from my place in the corner to stop. Before I could even stop myself to think about the consequences of my actions I was up and out of my seat, looking like a tramp by the way, and crouching down next to Bella.

"Hi, I'm Edward," I said by way of introduction. "I'm a pre-med here. Can you let me take a look at your hand?"

She didn't say anything in return; in fact she didn't even look like she was breathing and she had her eyes scrunched up really tight. Oh fuck man; she was even more beautiful up close. Yeah that's right I said beautiful; not hot, or smoking or anything like that. She was beautiful. I officially needed my balls reattached but whatever. She was bleeding a hell of a fucking lot, _how the hell did she cut herself so bad, _and I had a job to do.

"Can someone hand me a cloth or something to wrap around her hand please." Somebody handed me a hand towel. "Bella, you're going to have to go to the hospital, you're going to need stitches."

Her eyes flashed open and she looked me straight in the eye.

_FUCK. I CALLED HER BELLA. FUCK FUCK FUCK. I WASN'T SUPPOSED TO KNOW HER NAME._

"Wh-what?" She asked me quietly.

I cleared my throat before answering, trying to sound more professional again, and said, "Your cut. It's pretty bad and you need stitches. Can you get to the hospital?"

"Yeah its fine we can take her," piped up Alice from behind me. Considering her friend was bleeding all over the place she had a pretty massive grin on her face. Sometimes best friends could be really fucking scary. The only thing worse than best friends were dads. "Come on Bells, up you get. We've got our weekly visit with the ER."

"Weekly visit?" I asked confusedly, standing up as well.

"Yeah Bella here is a total klutz," Blondie said.

"Rosalie, shut up and get me to the hospital. Edward, uh, thanks for helping me. I'll see you on Wednesday."

And with that they gathered up their stuff and left the shop.

Well, _fuck_! I'd spoken to her! At long fucking last I'd spoken to her. However, I'd called her by her name when nobody had 'told' me it which meant she probably thought I was some weird stalker freak _and _I'd revealed I was pre-med which meant I'd have to fess up about why I was in her class.

Ah once again, fuck my life.

Then her final words came back to me – "I'll see you on Wednesday."

_I'll see you on Wednesday...when we had Lit Theory...she recognised me...she knew who I was!_

Shit, maybe my life wasn't fucked after all! Maybe Jazz and Em were right and I did need to chill the fuck out.

... that's when I made my way back to my table and realised that I still had a 2,000 word essay to write or Bella wouldn't be seeing me Wednesday at all.

Yep, fuck my life.

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**A/N: Well there's chapter 2! How do we like EPOV? Is he as much of a stalker as Bella? I feel some more anecdotes involving Jasper and Emmett are in order as well :) **

**Chapter 3 will be on its way shortly! and please let me know what you thought!  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Here's chapter 3. I have lots of reasons for this being super late, but won't bore you. Happy reading!**

**Disclaimer: Still own absolutely nada.**

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**Saturday nights had been our 'thing' for as long as I can remember. Every Saturday without fail Alice, Rosalie and I would gather together and do our thing. There was but one exception to the rule. And that exception was 'the third date'. If any of us happened to have a date that fell on the Saturday night, if it was date number three then said girl was allowed to bail on our tradition; for obvious reasons. I'm sure you understand.

So anyway, Alice and Rosalie ended up staying at mine Friday night due to a wine induced coma and a melt-down of epic proportions from Alice. She was also still on probation with her cell phone until she could be trusted once more. Saturday was mostly spent mooching around, flicking through magazines and moaning about how much work we had to do, even though we knew we'd leave it until the night before the deadline was due. What can I say? Organisation – not my thing. In fact I did have a deadline due on Monday for my lit theory class but it wasn't particularly difficult and I knew I could get it done during the day on Sunday.

When it got to about four o'clock Rosalie decided it was time to bail on us.

"Right then bitches. I've got the magic date tonight with Royce, so I'd better get moving. He's picking me up at 7," she gushed.

"Errrrgh," Alice groaned, looking up from her copy of vogue. "What the hell do you see in that guy? He is _such _a douche!"

"Amen on that one," I agreed. "Babe, he might be rich but in this case that is _not _a good thing."

"He is _not _a snob! He just has standards okay?"

"Whatever you say, Rose. He's a snob. You know it, Bella knows it and I know it."

"Considering your last boyfriend is almost certainly a homosexual you _really _cannot talk, Brandon. And this one," she said, pointing at me, "hasn't gotten laid in living memory. So please excuse me if I take your opinions with less than a pinch of salt."

"Rose, seriously, be careful with him. You might not mind that he's more than a little arrogant but I honestly don't trust him. He doesn't seem like the type of guy that's used to hearing no," I said. Honestly I was a little concerned. Royce was the type of guy that wore white jeans, boat shoes and got manicures but having met him, albeit briefly, I knew that guy had a nasty streak in him.

"Guys, relax. It's going to be fine. Besides I think he's trying to prove he's a normal guy because he said that tonight he's taking me to something a 'little bit different' so it should be fun!"

"What?" Asked Alice, with exaggerated shock. "You mean you aren't going to a restaurant where each entree is at least $100?"

"Har har. Just because Riley thought burger king was a 'restaurant'. Honestly, I thought gay guys were supposed to have better taste?"

"Just get out whore. Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" Alice shouted as Rose made her way to my front door.

"Well, there's pretty much nothing off the menu then, is there? Adios bitches." And she was gone.

"I know we take the piss out of her for Royce being a dick, but honestly B, I really _really _don't like him."

"Mmm, I know, me neither. Did Jessica tell you what he said to her when we bumped into them at the bar?"

"No...?"

"Well, you know how Jess has put on a few pounds, but she isn't _big _she's just a little larger? Well when he bought us all a drink, he whispered in her ear, 'I got you a double vodka, cause you're bigger than the others.' Can you _believe _that?"

"Fuck off! He did not! Have you told Rose?"

"Jess made me promise not to. She was so upset though, that's why we disappeared into the toilets for all that time."

"Ah that makes sense. I wondered where you'd got to. Anyway, where do you think the jerk is taking her tonight then? If it's 'something different'?"

"Fuck knows. I don't know why he's bothering to be honest. We all know what he's like. Besides, Rose likes being wined and dined. If he takes her to some dive bar then there is _no _way that girl is putting out for him tonight. I mean she isn't you!"

"Bitch!" Alice laughed, throwing a cushion at me. "You have a point though. Ten bucks says she's back here by 12."

"Make it 11," I said, shaking Alice's hand.

We didn't have to wait long. At 10 o'clock mine and Alice's phones chimed indicating we both had a text.

_He took me to a house party. They have a keg. FML. R xo_

"Oh my God. He doesn't know her _at _all!" I laughed

"What? What did her text say? Tell me, tell me, tell me! I hate not having my phone!" Alice chanted as she painted her toe nails.

"They're at an effing house party! Rosalie Hale is at a house party! Surrounded by beer!"

"Oh lord. He really doesn't know her. I bet she's super dressed up, covered in diamonds and with massive hair."

"Of course. It's date number three! Why isn't he charming her into bed?" I asked, as my phone chimed again.

_Hello? What is taking so long? Why haven't you rung me with an emergency yet? R_

"She wants you to ring her?"

"Standard. Okay, here goes," I said, pressing call on her number. She answered on the second ring.

"_Bella? Is everything okay? Why are you calling?"_

"You're at a keg party! Ha! This is the best thing I've ever heard. Has anyone vommed on your laboutins yet?"

"_Oh my god! That's awful? Is she okay?"_

"Or maybe someone has thrown Doritos in your hair? I'm sure they have Doritos there right? Also how many girls are half naked and gyrating on equally gross guys?"

"_I'll come right home! Royce won't mind if it's an emergency. I'll get a cab and be back in ten minutes! Tell Alice I'll be right with her." _And with that she hung up.

"Hahaha, that was brilliant! What did she pretend had happened?"

"I think she was pretending you were dying or something. She said to tell you she'll be right with you!"

"What? Why does it have to be me?"

"Well she couldn't very well be like 'oh hey Bella! You're what? Oh my God you've been run over! I'll be right there!' could she?"

"Hmph. I guess not. But next time I'm going to think up something great for my get-out. Something including Rose. And an unplanned pregnancy," she smiled, deviously.

About ten minutes later there was a banging on my front door and I got up to let an extremely pissed off Rosalie into my apartment.

"What the actual _fuck _was he thinking? He took me to a house party! _ME! _I don't do house parties. He should know this! This is date number three, he is supposed to know me somewhat by now. Has he listened to _nothing _I've said so far? Ergh!" She ranted, pulling off her high heels and flopping down onto my sofa.

"I hate to say I told you so but..."

"Shut up Alice. Seriously not in the mood right now. For God's sake, I finally thought I had a good one! Why are you both raising your eyebrows at me like that? He wasn't as bad as you're pretending he was!"

"Bella, you need to tell her."

"Alice, for fuck sake –"

" – tell me what? –"

" – this is why I didn't want to tell you!"

"Tell me _what?_"

"Okay, Rose, calm down. Please. Because this isn't going to make you feel any better."

"Bella stop being a dick and just tell me. What do you know that I don't?"

"Ergh, Royce bought Jess a double at the bar last week and told her it was because she was fatter than everyone else."

"He did WHAT? I'm going to fucking kill him! What a chauvinistic, misogynistic, filthy, nasty pig! Why the fuck didn't you tell me this sooner?"

"Jess told me not to," I said quietly.

"Well...Jess is an idiot! Why would she keep this quiet? Oh my God what an ASS! I wasn't going to see him again after tonight, but now I'm going to have to. Even if it's just to rip his balls off. How dare he say that to one of my best friends!"

"Babe," Alice started calmly, pouring Rose a glass of wine. Lord we were really getting through it this weekend. "Don't see him again. Please? He isn't worth it and me and Bella both think there's something really nasty about him. Tell us about the party instead. Was it really that bad?"

"It was pretty bad, though there was this one guy..."

"...go on?"

"Well I didn't talk to him, did I? I was with mother-fucking-Royce. I wish I'd have gone over to him now. Honestly girls, he was exactly my type. Really tall, really built, short curly dark hair, he even had dimples!"

"He had dimples?" Dimples were Rose's thing. "If he had dimples why didn't you speak to him?"

"I was with Royce! And I don't cheat, you know this guys."

"Who knows, maybe you'll see him one day again. Where was this party? If it was close to campus then maybe he goes to Seattle Uni!"

"It was pretty close to campus... The apartment was actually really nice. It's a shame it was being trashed by a bunch of drunk guys."

"Ah, see here lies the problem. This guy may have been your dream guy looks wise, but if he was at one of those parties which you hate _so _much, then is he the guy for you?" I asked.

"I don't mind the guys that go to them! To be honest I don't even mind them that much when I'm with you girls," she said. This was true. We had been to some legendary parties and between the three of us had some brilliant stories to tell. "Just don't take me to one as a _date _and especially not as a third date which everyone in the world knows is the one where you sleep with the guy! I mean come on, do I look like the house party type? No. No, I do not."

"Truer words were never spoken, Hale. At least now we don't have to put up with Royce. Though considering all the shit you gave me about Riley, Royce had some pretty strange habits too. Huh, Bella?"

"Indeed he did, Alice," I said, as Rosalie groaned. "What was it he spoke to you about? The best tanning salons in Seattle?"

"Yep, and don't forget the place where he gets his mani-pedis!"

"Yes, okay guys! Can we forget he ever existed now?"

"Um...no? This is worth years of material. Just like Tyler! HA do you remember him?"

"_Yes! _Though I'd really rather not!" Rose shouted as I howled with laughter.

Ah Tyler. Rose, Alice and I had all gone to high school together before moving to Seattle for college. Tyler had been one of the star players of our school and had naturally gone after Rosalie. After a good few years of wearing her down she finally agreed to go out with him and he turned out to be a pretty good guy...except for one area. Yep, you guessed it. In the bedroom.

The first time they decided to get down and dirty Tyler experienced a _little _problem and couldn't manage to get his junk ready. _Cringe number one._ Rosalie started getting ready to leave when Tyler promised it was just a fluke and he'd be okay in a minute. _Cringe number two. _He then spent the next five minutes chanting to himself under his breath '_I'm here...looking at you...you're sexy...I want you...' Cringe number three. _By some small miracle he managed to get it up, and Rosalie (she blames being young and naive) was still there. They get back down to the action but as soon as he lay down on top of her to continue the make out session horizontally...._splat. Cringe number four. _And that ladies and gentlemen was enough for Rosalie.

Ever since she told us what happened we have continued to totally rip her for it because it really is the ultimate in funny sex stories. And really, if that happened to your best friend wouldn't you find it a little funny? Needless to say Tyler never spoke to her again. Poor guy. I wonder if he ever managed to get that little problem fixed...

"Are we all crashing here again tonight then? It is a Saturday after all."

"I'm game if Rosalie is; I wasn't planning on moving anytime soon anyway, B."

"Totally. We can all go for brunch tomorrow at Mario's. It has been _far _too long since I had one of his Panini's. Mmm, mmm, mmm," Rose said smacking her lips together.

"A Mario Panini eh? Sounds like a euphemism to me," I snickered.

"You've just got sex on the brain, Bella. Meaning, you need to kiss goodbye to your battery operated best friend and say a big fat hello to Edward Cullen, and more specifically his peen," Rosalie said as Alice nodded.

"Guys, I've missed the boat! That stretch of time where it's socially acceptable to introduce yourself to someone has _gone. _Now if I go up and say hi I'm just going to look like a crazy person!"

"Well, firstly, you are a crazy person, so that's okay and secondly, you are talking total _shit_! Of course you can still introduce yourself! Just think of a reason! Ask him how his essay was! Anything!"

"_Fine! _Fine. Okay. I'll do it. If I see him, next time I will introduce myself. Happy?"

"Exceedingly! Now the fates just need to smile upon us and make it so that we bump into Edward and Rosalie finds her big hunk of man meat! And you know, somebody nice and straight for me wouldn't go a miss either, Mother Nature!" Alice exclaimed, raising her wine of glass in the air.

"Now _that_ I can raise a toast to!" Rose laughed as we all clinked our glasses together and settled in for the night.

At about 11 the next morning we wandered into Mario's. We used to come here _all _the time but since our workloads hiked up this year we hadn't had as much time to visit our favourite Italian coffee shop owner.

"My beautiful ladies!" He exclaimed as he saw us walk through the door. "Where have you been all my life? I never see you anymore! Come here."

"Hey Mario," we all said in unison as he kissed each of us on both cheeks. Bless him. He was such a stereotypical Italian, I mean, come on! His name was Mario for crying out loud! And he had a moustache like the Nintendo character. You just can't make that shit up!

"And for the lovely, Alice I have the Americano. The stunning, Rosalie gets an espresso. And for the beautiful, Bella a mocha! And luckily for all three of you, my Sabine has made Parma ham and mozzarella Panini's for today's special. I remember how much you like them!"

"Aw thank you Mario! I'm so sorry we haven't been in so long..." Alice babbled on as Mario started making our drinks. I tuned her out and started looking around the shop.

I'd always loved it here. I'd lived within walking distance from the shop the entire time I'd lived in Seattle and it never changed. Mario and Sabine were always friendly, the coffee was always great, the Panini's always fresh and the armchairs always squishy and comfy. In the winter they had a real log fire in here and in summer (though _real _hot days were rare) air conditioning.

Today there was the usual eclectic mix of people. Business men picking up coffee on their way through, mother's gathering to have a gossip while their kids sat next to them sleeping, students typing away on their laptops trying to finish their essa –

"Oh my _God_!" I gasped.

Edward-fuck-me-now-please-Cullen was sitting in an armchair in the corner of the cafe looking extra fuckable in a pair of sexy black rimmed glasses (swoon), with just the right amount of stubble on his jaw. And here I was with no make-up on, my hair in a ponytail and whatever I found on my floor this morning as my outfit. _Fuck fuck fuck._

I spun back around to face the girls instead of looking at him but me being the fucking idiot I am, threw my arm straight into my mug of mocha and sent it crashing to the floor.

"Oh my God, Mario I'm so sorry! I'll pay for a new one! It was a complete accident, I can't believe what a klutz I am!"

"Bella, what the hell happened there? Why did you spin around like that?" Alice asked quietly, bending down and trying to stop me from cutting myself. Rosalie started cackling with laughter so I can only assume she spotted the reason for my outburst of idiocy. God damnit, why did I have to show her Edward's pictures on Facebook! Fucking Facebook! So much more trouble than it was worth!

I knew I must have been bright-red and I only hoped that he didn't look over and see what a mess I'd caused. I just wanted to get out of here.

"Really Mario, I'm so sorry," I said as he appeared with a dustpan and brush. "I'll pay for the mug to be replaced and everything."

"Bella stop apologizing and stop touching the broken bits, you're going to cut yourself!" Alice shouted at me. _Keep your fucking voice down Alice! _I tried looking at her pointedly but she didn't really get it, and Rosalie was still laughing like the homicidal fucking witch that she was.

"Mario," Alice said, standing up and taking control. "Give me the brush, can you put our coffees into take away cups and Bella will have a new mocha, thanks." We were leaving, thank _God._

"What? I don't want to leave! We just got here and this is bound to be _brilliant!_" Fucking Rosalie. She'd definitely spotted Edward and was clearly waiting for whatever disaster was about to ensue as I made a fucking fool out of myself. Sometimes I really do wonder why I'm friends with her.

"Rose, please?" I plead with her, trying to convey with my eyes how badly I really fucking wanted to leave. Surely she wasn't this cold hearted. She knew how hung up on Edward I was. She wouldn't force me to meet him like this would she?

"Fine," she huffed. "Alice you owe me five bucks by the way."

"What? Why?"

Yeah that one was lost on my as well. They must have had some sort of bet about me behind my back. Whores. At least Alice still hadn't spotted Edward. That was literally the worst thing that could happen. Fuck knows what she'd say to him. She wasn't exactly shy in coming forward, if you know what I mean.

"I'll explain when we get back to Bella's."

_What? _I have an essay to write! She knows this.

"Why are we going back to mine?" I argued, getting distracted from the broken ceramic on the ground. "We've been there since Friday night when – _ouch_!" Fuck. I cut myself. Oh shit. Fuck. _Blood._ "Oh _shit _it's bleeding. Guys, do something!"

Give me puke, give me puss, give me _anything _other than blood and I can deal with it. But blood. No. Just no. It's always made me lightheaded and the amount of times I've fainted from the mere smell of somebody _else's_blood was ridiculous, let alone my own. I stuck my hand out stupidly and shut my eyes tight while I turned my face away from my hand and tried not to breath. Hopefully one of my friends would have the sense to get a bandage or something.

"Hi, I'm Edward," said a deep, smooth voice which sounded really fucking close to me. "I'm a pre-med here. Can you let me take a look at your hand?"

Really? Was there no God? Did he hate me? _Why _oh why did this have to happen? Here I was, trying not to faint, or worse vomit, and a man who could quite possibly be the love of my life was trying to treat me. If I threw up on him I'd literally have to move to another country.

I didn't know what to do, so I carried on looking the other way while trying not to breath and waved my bloody hand in his general direction. He took hold of it and started, what I assume, was an examination. He was pre-med? Why was he in a lit class then? Surely somebody hoping to become a doctor would be taking sciences? And even if he did love literature how did he have the time for the extra work?

_More importantly why the fuck was I thinking all this when I was finally talking _(okay talking might be pushing it a bit) _to my future husband? _ Wow, future husband. Apparently I am crazy or maybe my light-headedness was to blame.

"Can someone hand me a cloth or something to wrap around her hand please?" I heard him call. Somebody must have complied because I felt a cloth being tied expertly around my hand. "Bella, you're going to have to go to the hospital, you're going to need stitches."

Okay. Hold the fucking phone. I opened my eyes and turned quickly to look straight into those emerald orbs that had been haunting my dreams for _weeks. _

_Bella? Did he just call me Bella?_

Even in my nauseous, near fainting state I was with it enough to know that I, nor anybody around me, had informed him that my name was Bella.

There was only one answer. He knew my name. Edward Cullen knew that my name was Bella. Before today and this incident

"Wh-what?" I asked him almost in a whisper. This revelation had me shocked. Also I was still trying not to get sick on him, but the less said about that the better.

He coughed slightly and for a second I think he realised his mistake before he said, "Your cut. It's pretty bad and you need stitches. Can you get to the hospital?"

Clearly I have issues with coherency around him because I found myself tongue tied and unable to form an answer. Thank God for Alice.

"Yeah its fine we can take her," she said standing behind Edward. Seeing as I was bleeding profusely she could have found it in her to wipe that shit-eating grin off her face. Clearly she was excited that I'd finally got my meeting with Edward. Even if the circumstances left something to be desired. "Come on Bells, up you get. We've got our weekly visit with the ER." She said, grasping my good hand and pulling me to my feet.

"Weekly visit?" Edward asked in a confused voice as he stood up too. Wow, he was tall up close.

"Yeah Bella here is a total klutz," Rosalie interjected. _Bitch. _

"Rosalie, shut up and get me to the hospital." I hissed at her. "Edward, uh, thanks for helping me. I'll see you on Wednesday."

Excellent I managed to get an actual sentence out to him. I was still mad embarrassed though and my hand was really starting to fucking hurt now the adrenaline was wearing off. So with one final look at him in all of his sexy-doctor-God-glory we made our way out of the shop.

"Oh my God. How mortifying?" I exclaimed as we got into Alice's car.

"Pfft, what are you on about? That was a total in! And he's a fucking _doctor! _Do you have any idea how hot that is?" Alice shouted.

"Uh, yeah, of course I do! I had no idea though. I mean what the hell is he doing in lit theory?"

"That though crossed my mind too. You know what else I thought?" Alice asked, as we pulled out of the parking lot and headed towards the hospital.

"What?" Rose and I asked together.

"He knew your name was Bella!"

"Yeah that thought crossed my mind too..." I said with a smile on my face.

That's when Rosalie started laughing again. I turned to face her as she sat cackling in the back seat.

"Stop laughing you absolute bitch! I'm in pain here! This situation is not funny."

"Oh hun, that's not why I'm laughing," she managed to choke out.

"Then why are you?" I asked confused.

"Well you know that party I went to last night? I didn't recognise him at the time because he was pretty wasted and I'd only ever seen pictures of him, and I was pretty pissed with Royce, but now I've seen him again and have put two and two together, you'll never guess who was at the party!" She said very quickly and very excitedly.

"Edward was there?" I gasped.

"He was indeed. And you won't _believe _what I heard him saying!"

"What? What?" Alice and I shouted.

"Well it was to do with a beaufitul, brunette that he took a class with..."

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**A/N: So what did you think? Please please let me know. Your feedback means the world to me.**

**I've had a shit load of things to do the past few months as I've been finishing up at school which means essays and have started my exams. I've also been extremely ill but no one wants to hear about that. I was desperate to get a chapter out though and the next chapter of Porcelain Cement is about 2,000 words in!**

**Sorry once more for the delay but I'm finished with school for summer on June 3rd so from then updates should be coming out of my ears! Happy reading my lovely readers!**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I'm on summer holiday now! That means updates should be coming thick and fast ;) Enjoy chapter 4!**

**Disclaimer: I'm even poorer and own even less of ANYTHING now that it's summer and I have no job. So yeah, Twilight isn't mine.**

OoOoOoOoOoO

EPOV

Waking up on Monday morning I actually felt a little sick, and for the first time in a while it wasn't alcohol induced or self-inflicted. I had to hand in my piece of shit essay by twelve o'clock today and I knew Bella did too which meant the chances of me running into her were greatly fucking increased. Generally the only time I ever saw her was during class on Wednesdays and Fridays, what with me being in the labs on the other side of campus and all.

Now that I'd finally manned up and spoken to her I didn't really have a fucking clue what to do next. I wasn't used to this shit! I hadn't _dated_ in literally forever. The only time I ever seemed to go on dates nowadays was when Emmett or Jasper forced me to take out the reject best friend of whatever chick they were hoping to score with. Hey, don't look at me that way, it's the truth! All guys know it. Whenever a girl is all "Do you have anyone you could bring, it's just my best friend is single at the moment..." and blah blah blah, then you _know _there's a reason she's single.

I'd been flat-out refusing to go on _any _of those dates for months now...ever since a certain brunette waltzed into my life in fact. And now I finally had a reason to talk to said brunette which could only lead to good things, right?

So anyway, I got it into my head that I was _bound _to bump into her at the English Literature Office. Today was the day and I was totally psyched up and ready to go. I had all my lines worked out in my head, "How is your hand?" "Did you need stitches?" "Did you wait very long in the ER?" Yeah, I know they're all pretty lame but I had to start _somewhere _and knowing what she'd done to her hand gave me an in.

Needless to say when I arrived at the office and Mrs Cooper, the 60 year old receptionist who was permanently angry, was the only one in sight, I was more than a little disappointed.

_Whatever. _I'd been waiting months to speak to her; it's not as if two more days were going to make _that _much difference anyway.

Feeling considerably less fucking buoyant than I had on my way down I began to make my way back to my apartment. In my eagerness I'd handed the stupid fucking essay in at the crack of dawn (I figured Bella to be the studious, organised type) and I now had a few hours to kill before my afternoon lab.

I'd only got about ten minutes towards my place when my phone started ringing.

"What do you want, Jasper?" There was no way Jasper would be awake before eleven unless he was after something.

"_Dude, I know you said never again after the chick with the obsession with Justin Bie-"_

"No, Jasper. Don't even bother."

"_Edward, please! I am literally begging you! I met this chick last night and I think I may be in love with her already."_

"You met her _last night_? Honestly? Where?" I'll admit I was a little intrigued. Although Jasper was _far _from celibate and had his fair share of the ladies, he wasn't one to throw around words like 'love' lightly. I was starting to wonder if he was high.

"_Just at a bar in town. She was having a drink with one of her friends but she fucked off somewhere and her other best friend was at home writing an essay. I'm meant to be seeing her tonight but uh, she kind of wants to bring a friend now."_

"Hang on. So you arranged to go out, just you two, and _now _she wants to bring a friend?"

_Silence._

"Jasper, what the fuck's going on?"

"_Okay, fine. Yes, we arranged to go out for tonight, like a proper date, but then we carried on drinking, and like, seriously, she is _so _hot, wait 'til you see her. And, well, you know how it is."_

"Jasper did you fuck this girl the night you met her?"

"_Uh, yeah, maybe. Just a little."_

I snorted, "Wow, she sounds like a real classy lady."

"_Fuck off, Edward, don't talk about her like that. You don't get it, it's not like that. I seriously like this girl, but I think she might be a bit embarrassed now and wants to bring her friend for moral support."_

I sighed deeply into the phone. Jasper sensed weakness and went in for the kill.

"_Dude come on, please! I will owe you, for like, fucking _ever. _And I'll never ask you to double date ever again!"_

"Why can't you ask Emmett? I'm sure he'll say yes."

"_Have you not listened to anything I've said? I _like _this girl! You know what Emmett's like. He'll probably end up sleeping with her friend and never calling her again and that'll completely fuck me over 'cause then I'll be in the bad books for bringing him!"_

"How do you know I won't do that?" I asked suspiciously.

"_As if, Edward. You wouldn't do that anyway, and we all know you're hung up on this Bella chick. So come on, please? Will you do it?"_

He had me. And to be honest he sounded like he really did like this girl, whoever she was. "Ergh, fine. Fine!"

"_Edward you are AWESOME! I'll be by yours at 8! Wear something nice, we're going for dinner! Thank you!" _And then he hung up.

Great.

Yet again I was stuck playing matchmaker to some sad girl that couldn't get a date of her own while Jasper worked his charm offensive on the real catch; though by the sounds of things this one might actually stick. Not that Jasper, Emmett and myself were man whores or anything, there were _far _worse guys out there than us. Let's just say the right girl hadn't come along for any of us yet. Well, I think mine had, it was just the matter of _talking _to her that was the problem, and it looked like Jasper had finally found his match. Just Emmett left then...

As I made my way into my apartment I could hear my TV was on. Jasper had just got off the phone to me which left only...

"Emmett?" I called.

"Hey, Edward! How's it going?"

"Why are you here, Emmett?" I asked wearily, flopping myself down on the sofa next to him.

"There's a bit of a, uh, situation, over at my place. So I'm just lying low 'til it blows over," he replied, looking more than a little nervous.

"What now?"

"Lauren."

And with that one word I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Lauren Mallory... now where to do I start with that girl. I suppose the obvious thing to say is that she's Emmett ex-girlfriend, but that would be putting it _way _more fucking simple than it actually is. To be honest, I think they only actually dated for about six months or something and the entire time they were together was like living in purgatory. Imagine the most possessive, psycho, scary ass bitch you can and then multiple it by ten and you're _almost _at the level of Lauren.

Some examples:

To begin with she did all of the usual things that possessive scary girlfriends do. She read his text messages, hacked into his emails, went through his Facebook, etcetera. But then Emmett finally got a clue and about six weeks ago he broke up with her. Well, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned has taken on a whole new meaning since then. Regularly Emmett has arrived home to find her sitting on his porch waiting for him. If she sees his car out then she will wait by the car until he returns to it. She even managed to get onto his Facebook and delete every single female friend he had, including his own family. She calls at all hours of the day and night and as if all this wasn't bad enough, she decided to step up her game about two weeks ago.

We still don't have a fucking clue how she managed to do it, but when Emmett came home from class and opened his door when he switched on his light he found one Lauren Mallory sitting on his couch waiting for him. Yes, she was _inside _his apartment. Personally, I think she stole a spare key from when they were together but Jasper is convinced she scaled the building Spiderman-stylie and broke in through an open window. Normally I would dismiss this idea, but with Lauren anything was possible.

"What has she done now?" I asked cautiously, a little scared of the answer.

"Meh, nothing new. She was sitting on the doorstep when I got back there earlier but I saw her before she saw me and turned around and came here. I can't deal with her this morning," he said, shaking his head as he spoke.

"Dude, you're going to have to get a restraining order, you do realise that?" Things had already gone too far. Enough was seriously e-fucking-nough.

"I know," he sighed. "I'll go down to the police station in the morning."

"You've been saying that for weeks. You've already had your locks changed and your phone number changes on a weekly basis. You've got to sort this Emmett!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. It's fine, I've got it all under control."

"Whatever you say, dude. I'm just glad it's you and not me," I laughed.

OoOoOoOoOoO

I spent the rest of the day imagining what horrors awaited me on this evening's date. In the past I had been subjected (yes that's right, fucking _subjected_) to a string of complete bimbos, a girl that thought Justin Bieber was the second coming of Christ, girl's that ate _nothing, _girl's that ate _everything, _girl's that had just been just been dumped and wouldn't stop crying, you get the idea. No good _ever _came of these dates. And whether it was Jasper or Emmett I was helping out, which ever fucker it was _always _ended up abandoning me and leaving me with whatever disaster I was paired up with for the night.

Jasper was going to owe me _massively._

He finally pulled up in front of my apartment at about ten to eight with a massive stupid grin on his face.

"You can wipe that fucking smirk of your face because I am _not _happy about this, okay?" I said as I climbed into his car and buckled myself in.

"Ha, no way. I am far too blissed out," he replied, grinning even more.

"Blissed out?" I laughed. "Did you honestly just say that?"

"I sure did, because that's how I feel. Just wait 'til you meet her Edward, she's perfect."

"Mhmm, so you said. Care to tell me anything more about her than that?"

"Well...she's pretty short, like a lot shorter than me, but it suits her," he said, his stupid smile growing even more. "She's got hazel eyes, dark hair..." he trailed off.

"Don't suppose she has a name?" I asked, smiling myself. Jasper's happiness was kind of contagious.

"Oh. Yeah, of course she does. She's called Alice."

You know that feeling you get, when your heart sort of stops, and it sort of speeds up at the same time? And your stomach gets that feeling where it drops and your blood runs cold?

_Pretty much sums up how that felt. _But come on, how many Alice's must live in and around Washington? Fucking loads.

"Um, Jasper? When you say she's short, how short do you mean?" Better try and clear this up.

"Like, really fucking short. Like just pushing five feet short, but honestly, it suits her," he said, looking at me eagerly and nodding his stupid head.

So, she's called Alice, has dark hair and is super tiny by the sounds of things. His Alice couldn't be Bella's Alice, could it?

"Did she mention what her friend is called that she's bringing? Or what she looks like or anything?"

_Please say Isabella, please say Isabella, please say Isabella._

"Nah, sorry dude, this is going to truly be a blind date for you. And honestly, I know how much you hate them, and said you'd never go on one again, but I can't express how much it means to me..."

I zoned Jasper out.

If this Alice was who I suspected it was then the chances are her friend was going to be Bella. _Fuck. _An entire evening getting to know her, where, hopefully, there would be no broken glass, or mugs and no literary fucking theory to destroy my soul. I couldn't believe my chances! Here I was expecting the worst when it could turn out that I was going to get the very best! Looks like I might not have to wait two days after all, I was going to get to spend this very evening with her.

We finally pulled up to the restaurant and both of us stepped eagerly out of the car, and there she was! Outside the restaurant already waiting! Jasper's and Bella's Alice was the exact same person!

"Jazz!" Short stuff exclaimed, throwing herself into his arms. She sure as hell didn't look embarrassed about whatever they got up to last night to me.

"Hey Ali," he cooed. Oh _gag. _They were so sickly sweet it was making me sick. "This is Edward," he said, taking a step to the side so as to showcase me.

I smirked as Alice's eyes widened in recognition and her mouth opened in surprise.

"Nice to meet you properly, Alice," I said, turning on the charm. It couldn't hurt to get into the best friend's good books right?

"Edward, wow, hi," she stammered. I looked away from her and tried to search for Bella but I couldn't see her chestnut locks anywhere.

"And where is –"

But I didn't get a chance to finish my sentence because I was interrupted by a sound that had been haunting me since Sunday when we were in the coffee shop.

"Edward, this is Rosalie," Alice said, stepping aside to reveal the, once more, cackling blonde bitch.

Fuck. My. Life.

I fucking _knew _these dates never a good idea.

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**A/N: Sorry for the short chapter but I think there was a good place to stop! So like I say, I'm now on summer holiday which means updates should be MUCH more frequent. I had some really bad news a couple of weeks ago, which kind of knocked the writing out of me but I've come to terms with stuff now and I'm back on track!**

**Porcelain Cement should be updating Monday, so keep an eye out for that!**

**I've got twitter now, so follow me! /Green_eyesx**

**Also, check out our competition blog! We're running an Alice themed contest atm, which I wrote a o/s, 'All I Ever Wanted', as an example entry for. Check out the contest! http:/fanfiction-challenges. blogspot. com/**

**Until next time my dears!**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Chapter 5 ladies and gents! I hope you enjoy ;)**

**Disclaimer: God, I'm getting bored of repeating the fact that I Don't. Own. Anything.**

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I fucking _hated_ the hospital. I hated everything about it. The smell, the fact everything was white, the endless forms, the queues, just _everything. _And yet, I always ended up here. The receptionist that sat at the front desk now recognised me when I approached and didn't even bother to point out where the clipboards holding the forms were. _And_ it was fucking packed in here today. _And_ I had an essay to write. Ergh.

As soon as we saw the waiting crowd I felt Rose and Alice begin to back away towards the door. Don't get me wrong, they are _great_ friends, but I wasn't going to make them wait God knows how long for me to get my stupid hand stitched up.

"Guys, just go," I sighed.

"Don't be stupid, we're not going to leave you here," Alice said.

"Seriously, you know what this place is like. I'll get a cab home. Just go!"

"Well...if you're sure?" Rose asked, with undisguised hope in her voice.

"Yes. Go," I urged them, waving them back out of the doors.

Once somebody checked I wasn't about to bleed to death I was sent to sit in the waiting room until my name was called. Luckily after about half an hour I was brought into a cubicle and five stitches later (yes, you heard me correctly, _five_) I was sat in a taxi and heading back to my apartment.

To say I was relieved to find my apartment empty when I got back would be a massive fucking understatement because I really did have a _huge _amount of work to do. However, when I powered up my laptop the first thing I did was log into Facebook - obviously.

I had a few notifications but I ignored those and went straight to Edward's profile. After Rosalie's revelations about what she had overheard I was looking at his picture (which was all I could fucking see now, thank you very much Facebook people) in a brand new light.

Rosalie usually ignored drunk guys like they had the plague but according to her the dude at this party was so "completely pathetic" that she couldn't help but listen in. Although she didn't know it was him at the time, Rose overheard Edward moaning about having to go to a "stupid fucking English class and do some stupid ass essay" to which hot, dimples guy told him to "man up and talk to her then". At first this confused Rose but Edward then went on to spend the next half an hour (I'm pretty sure Rose is exaggerating) drunkenly moaning about how some beautiful brunette (she distinctly remembered him using the word 'beautiful' because she said it sounded weird hearing that word used at a keg party) would never talk to him once she found out how pathetic he was, etcetera.

Apparently Rose got bored of listening to him after a while and went back to hating on Royce. However, from what we could piece together from Rose's eavesdropping and our little meeting in the coffee house Edward was a medical student who was taking an English class that he didn't need, presumably because he fancied a 'beautiful brunette' that took said class.

He also knew my name was Bella even though we'd _never _spoken before.

Okay, so we can all see what that points towards but there was no way in hell that I was going to get my hopes up. In real life, things like that didn't happen. It wasn't that easy. Something always had to go wrong. Boy didn't meet girl, have some cliché meeting, fall in love and live happily ever after. Nope, no way! And until I had concrete evidence that I was this girl, or until I'd done enough to turn Edward off that girl and onto _me_, I wasn't going to get carried away.

So I sat there, staring at the tiny profile picture that was still available to me, wondering if I should just bite to bullet and add him. After all we had met now. He'd introduced himself to me, he knew my name, we'd both acknowledged the fact that we had class together. Adding him, at this point in time, was perfectly acceptable.

Or was it?

Could I really just add him, seemingly out of the blue? According to Facebook we didn't even have any mutual friends, so it wasn't even like I could have stumbled across his page and thought 'Oh! It's Edward! Fuck it, I'll add him!' No. That couldn't have happened. If I added him now it would be blatantly obvious that I'd taken the time to search out his profile and find him. Damn it. Why couldn't we both know at least _one _same person? Then it'd be so easy! I could 'peacock' a little on their page, he'd spot me and then _he _could add _me._

Ah Facebook 'peacocking'. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, let me explain to you what it is. Right, so you know how a peacock flashes all his tail feathers to get the attention of a potential mate? Well Facebook 'peacocking' works in kind of the same way – minus the feathers. Say you have a guy you are madly in love with (e.g. Edward) but you don't want to be the one to add him on Facebook because you a) don't want to look like a stalker and b) don't want to seem too keen? Well, take a mutual friend (if you have one, that is) and if you see said guy has commented on, say, a photo or a status, then you comment on it too. They will then spot you and can do the adding without feeling like they've stalked you because they have a legitimate way of having stumbled across your Facebook. "Oh yeah, I saw you commented on Kate's status and I was like 'Oh, hey it's Bella' so I thought I'd add you." It works. _Trust_ me.

Unfortunately for me I didn't have a single fucking mutual friend with him so that plan was completely out of the window. _Sigh. _At the very least I'd see him on Wednesday, maybe even tomorrow when I handed in the fucking essay.

Ugh, the essay.

Grudgingly I logged off Facebook (it was hard, trust me) and opened up the dreaded Word document. If I was lucky I'd be done by midnight.

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In my awesome time plan to be done by midnight I forgot to factor in the fact that I _would _be disturbed by either Rose or Alice at some point over the evening. Today the disturbance was Alice.

"My hand is fine, I'm doing my essay, leave me alone, bye." I said by way of hello when answering my phone.

"_Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Don't hang up! When do you think you'll be done?_" She asked, clearly not getting the real gist of my hello.

"At this rate, never. Why?" I was a little curious about why she wanted to know when I'd be finished.

"_Me and Rose were thinking of going for a few drinks tonight. Skavo's have that special offer on a Sunday and_ –"

"I am _not_ going to Skavo's." Fuck. That.

"_Why not? It's always so much fun!_"

"No it isn't! Anyway, there is no way I'll be done with this and even if I was, Skavo's is the last place on earth I'd want to go to celebrate."

"_You're mad. That place is brilliant. You get all the best characters in there!" _

"What like the guy that asked me if I was Jamaican?" I scoffed.

"_Ha! That was _brilliant! _I still can't believe you ruined his chat-up line. You were supposed to say, 'No, why?'" _She laughed down the line.

"Oh really? And let him say 'because Jamaican me crazy'? Like, seriously? Did he really think that would work? Of all the shitty chat-up lines to use..."

"_God, you were funny. And your voice! 'Do I _look_ Jamaican to you?' You didn't even crack a smile when you answered him back!_"

"Uh, that was because it wasn't funny! My accent _clearly _shows I'm American and honestly, I _reflect _the sun. The only people paler than me are albinos!"

"_True dat. So you aren't coming?"_

"No, Alice. I'm not."

"_Fiiine," _she sung down the line. "_It's your loss! I'll see you tomorrow to let you know if anything interesting happens! Bye!" _

That little interruption from Alice threw me completely off track. I managed to get to the end of the actual essay before I felt like I was about to collapse. Usually I'd have all my references and bibliography work done too but bumping into your one true love and slicing your hand open can really take it out of you. Referencing would just have to wait until the morning and the essay would have to be handed in at ten instead of the usual nine. I was fucking _shattered. _

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In the end my referencing only took me about ten minutes so I still ended up handing the essay in really fucking early. There was already one essay sitting in Mrs Cope's in tray though so I guess somebody was as eager as I was. Maybe it was Edward...Nah. By the sounds of things he didn't even want to be in this class so I guessed the likelihood of him handing his essay in before the very last minute was slim.

I was still ridiculously tired from the past weekend but fortunately I had Mondays off which meant I could go home, run a nice hot bubble bath and spend the rest of the day relaxing...

That was the plan anyway. I forgot that in my life my plans _never _work out, especially when they concern my own relaxation and I came home to find Alice sitting on my couch wearing clothes that definitely suggested that she hadn't returned home last night.

"What have you done?" I sighed, sitting down next to her.

"Bella, I think I might be in love," she replied looking at me.

I, of course, immediately started laughing but stopped when I saw the look on her face and realised she was completely fucking serious.

"Alice what the fuck are you talking about?" I asked, slightly freaked out. Alice was well known for falling in 'love' with people but she had pretty much _just _broken up with Riley and the way she was looking at me was creeping me out a little bit. She was all wide eyed (said eyes were bloodshot, by the way) and kept nodding her head and shit. It was weird.

"Bella I met him last night and I swear it was love at first sight. Like I've never believed in any of that before but like, it literally was. And we started drinking, and we got on _so _well and he was so funny and really, really charming and we drank some more, and Rosalie vanished, and it was just me and him and then we went back to his place and I...um...I..." She said this all in one big breath before going _bright _red and burying her face behind one of my cushions.

"Alice!" I gasped. "Tell me you didn't!"

"I did," she mumbled from behind the pillow, her face hidden. Suddenly she popped up from behind it and said, in complete seriousness, "but it doesn't _really _count."

"Oh here we go again. And why doesn't this one count?" Alice had a habit of trying to find ways to make her sexual encounters 'not count' – even though they all did. For example, 'I was drunk so it doesn't count', 'I was on holiday so it doesn't count', and 'He couldn't speak English so it doesn't count'. You get the idea.

"Well...like we _started_ and then I got a bit freaked out...like...it was _awesome _but I really like this guy and all of a sudden I was like 'Oh my god, what if he thinks I'm a total slut' and then I was like 'I can't do this' and he was really nice and understanding and he wants to take me out again tonight but now I feel _so _embarrassed and –"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up. So you _started _having sex with him, and then decided you didn't want to anymore, and he was really nice about it and you're going out again tonight?"

"Um, yeah, pretty much."

"So you did still have sex with him?"

"Not really."

"Yes really."

"No, we stopped."

"Alice, did you have his you-know-what in your you-know-where?"

"Gah, _yes_, but only for like – a couple of thrusts!" She was back hiding behind the pillow again and had started laughing.

"Then it counts you weirdo! If he was inside you, then you had sex!" I laughed, chucking another cushion at her.

"Oh, whatever!" She reappeared again and threw the cushion back at me and soon enough we'd descended into a fit of giggles and laughter.

"So," Alice began, wiping the tears from her eyes, "you'll come with me tonight, yes?"

"Uh...no? Why do you need me to come? You've already fucked him Alice, I think the 'scared-to-be-alone-so-I'm-bringing-a-friend-on-this-date' ship has sailed."

"Don't say it like that! Let's just say I'm a little bit embarrassed, okay? He said that he'll bring somebody too. Come on, it'll be fun! You can meet him and grill him about everything!"

"Oh, that's a good point. What's his name? We can look him up on Facebook," I said excitedly.

"Nope, I'm not telling you. I don't want you doing any Facebook digging on this one. I really like him and I want to get to know him _properly _instead of by finding out what his favourite films are from Facebook and then subtly dropping them into conversations."

"Boo, you whore. Ruin all of my fun why don't you? I'm definitely not going on your date now!"

"Bella, don't even joke insult me like that right now. My reputation is a very touchy subject for me at the moment," she said with a serious face, before cracking up into more laughter a second later, with me promptly joining in.

"Seriously though, take Rosalie with you. She loves these sorts of things. She's in her element when she's torturing unsuspecting men, _particularly _those hoping to be future suitors of ours."

Just as I said that, there was a buzz on my intercom signalling that somebody was at my door. I pressed the button to speak into it to find out who it was and was greeted with Rose's voice.

"_Let me in," _she groaned. "_My head feels like it's going to explode."_

After buzzing her up she walked into my living room, took one look at Alice, and her mood improved almost immediately.

"Well aren't you looking fresh Miss Brandon? I take it that blonde dude got lucky? Classy Al, _real _classy," she said winking at her.

"Fuck off Rosalie, like you haven't done it before," Alice huffed.

"Ha! Was it worth it?"

"We're not sure Rose," I cut in, "because apparently her sex with him doesn't _actually _count."

"Oh for God's sake, what loophole are you trying to invent this time?" Rose asked.

"I don't invent loopholes!" Alice defended. "All of my reasons are legitimate excuses for sex not counting!"

Rose and I shot her a _very _sceptical look.

"They are!" Alice shouted.

"Okay, Alice dear. Whatever you say," Rose said in an extremely patronising tone. "Now tell us all about this guy that you _didn't_ have sex with. Starting with the most important details first."

"Which are?" Alice looked very confused. All things considered she could be very naive at times. Especially seeing as we were friends with somebody like Rosalie.

"His dick, Alice!" Rose said exasperated. "I want details! Length, girth, you name it!"

"_Jesus Christ_," I muttered, as I excused myself and went to fix us lunch instead. I was all for sharing and caring but once Rosalie got started with her interrogation there was no stopping her and there were some things I could do without hearing.

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As it transpired Rosalie leapt at the opportunity to accompany Alice on her date. Most normal people hated having to be the tag-along date because you _always _got stuck with a complete freak, while your friend enjoyed their proper date. Rosalie, however, was not a normal person, and therefore lived for these opportunities. Due to the fact that she was stunningly beautiful it was usually pretty hilarious looking at the shocked face of whoever had been brought along to keep her occupied.

I waved them off from mine at about half past six in the evening (so much for my relaxing day). They weren't meeting their dates until eight but needed time to beautify themselves, of course. I finally ran that bath I'd been looking forward to all day, grabbed a book and went to read it in the warmth and comfort of my bathroom.

To say I was surprised when Alice text me at eight would be an understatement; though the actual text confused me even more.

_You need to make yourself look BEAUTIFUL and drive over to Wild Ginger right fucking NOW. DO NOT IGNORE THIS TEXT UNLESS YOU WANT ROSALIE TO RUIN YOUR LIFE. A xo_

What. The. Actual. Fuck?

I needed to be beautiful? And go to the restaurant they were at? Because Rosalie was about to ruin my life? _What?_

_Al what are you on? I'm in the bath! B xo_

She text back in literally thirty seconds.

_I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS. I'M DOING DAMAGE LIMITATION BUT YOU NEED TO GET HERE ASAP. WEAR YOUR BLUE DRESS. DON'T ASK QUESTIONS JUST DO IT A XO_

Completely fucking confused and really worried I jumped out of the bath. Luckily I'd already shaved my legs and arm pits so I didn't have to worry about that but my hair was totally damp still. I threw on my dress and did my make-up while I was waiting for my hair to dry a bit more. Unlike Rosalie or Alice I could wash my hair and go because it dried in natural waves but I decided to throw it up into a messy bun anyway.

To be honest, considering I got ready in about five fucking minutes I didn't look too shabby.

I grabbed a silver clutch bag from out of my wardrobe, threw my phone, purse and keys in it and ran out to my car.

Something serious must have happened for Alice to text me something so demanding and, if I'm being honest, frightening. How on earth could Rosalie possibly be about to ruin my life? Surely she wouldn't do anything on purpose? Or would she? No, she wouldn't. And how would she actually be _able_ to anyway?

Bloody hell, the sooner I got to the restaurant and figured out what the fucking hell was going on the better. Unfortunately it was one of those nights when every light was red and the road was full of idiots that couldn't drive. It took me at least ten minutes longer than it usually did to drive down town.

I _finally_ got to the stupid restaurant and pulled up into the parking lot. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself before stepping through the glass doors and into the restaurant, which considering it was a Monday; was pretty busy still.

That being said it didn't take me long to spot Alice because she was bouncing up and down in her seat, acting like she was on crack. She was sitting opposite a guy that, although sitting down, was obviously tall and had honey blonde hair. He also looked freakishly familiar.

Rosalie was next to Alice and she was wearing an expression that resembled something between a smirk and a sneer. It was the look she got when she was enjoying herself immensely.

And then my eyes travelled to the person sitting opposite Rosalie.

He had his back to me but considering I'd spent the last six or so weeks staring at the back of his head I'd become pretty well skilled in spotting Edward Cullen from afar. No wonder the blonde dude looked familiar. I'd been looking at pictures of him on Facebook for weeks now as I trawled through everything Edward was tagged in. Well, before Facebook ruined that for me anyway. So, this was Jasper Whitlock in the flesh and by the looks of things he was the new love of Alice's life. Huh, what a small world it was.

Then realisation hit me like a punch to the gut.

If Jasper was Alice's date then that meant Edward was...

_Oh shit._

And the fact Rosalie was looking so vindictively pleased with herself did not bode well.

_Double shit._

She was going to ruin my life was she? I'd be fucking lucky if it wasn't already six feet under.

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**A/N: I hope you enjoyed that! The 'not counting' and 'chat-up lines' bits are all true. God I love my besties. **

**What do we think Rose has been saying to Edward? How pissed off is he going to be when we get his POV next chapter? And finally, **_**finally **_**next chapter we'll get some real, solid, massive ExB interaction! If you review I'll even send you a teaser for it ;)**

**Follow me people! /Green_eyesx**

**And don't forget to check out our Alice competition over at the blog: http:/fanfiction-challenges. blogspot. com/ Entries are literally about to close but voting starts very soon!**

**Finally, Porcelain Cement will update in the next couple of days so keep an eye out ;)**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Hey guys! Sorry about the wait, I went on holiday and there was no internet there! **

**Also, tried sending teasers but some people said they didn't get them? *Shakes fist at FFn* Let me know if that was the case and I'll send you something else? **

**Disclaimer: Yeah, you know the drill.**

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EPOV

"Hi Edward! I'm so looking forward to tonight," Rosalie cooed at me. If it wasn't for the malevolent gleam in her eye I may have thought she was flirting with me.

"Hold up," Jasper interrupted. "You guys know each other?" He asked confused, waving a hand from me towards Alice and Rosalie.

"Uh, sort of. Edward knows our other friend – Bella – a little more than us," Alice supplied, giving me a sympathetic smile.

"_Bella? _You're friends with –"

"Yes. They are. Thank _you, _Jasper," I cut him off before he made a complete dick out of me.

"So, are we going to stand around here all night like idiots? I'm hungry and sure have got a hankering for steak," Rosalie grinned at our obvious discomfort. "Come on Alice," she said, grabbing Alice by the arm and steering her into the restaurant.

"_Dude_," Jasper hissed as we followed the girls at a safe distance. "Is this for real? Alice and this Rosalie chick are Bella's, as in _Bella-Bella's, _best friends?"

"Yes," I sighed. "I worked out in the car that _your_ Alice was _her_ Alice but thought _Bella _would be the one with her, not fucking Rosalie."

"You don't like Rosalie?" He asked, arching an eyebrow at me.

"No, I don't." I said brusquely, under my breath as we drew up next to the girl's and were shown to a table.

Alice and Rosalie migrated towards seats next to each other, and Jasper and I, being the gentlemen we are, pulled out their chairs for them to sit on. Alice looked up at Jasper blushing and muttered a muted '_thanks', _while Rosalie snorted and said at normal volume, "and who said chivalry was dead?" in an obviously sarcastic voice. Fuck, tonight was going to be so much fun.

We'd barely sat down before Alice had her phone out and began hammering on the keys at a rapid pace.

"Who are you texting?" Rose enquired. I saw Jasper's attention focus on Alice's answer and knew he must have been curious too. To be honest it was kind of rude that she was texting someone, after all she was on a date with Jasper. Not that he'd have called her out on it though; he was already too pussy whipped.

"Nobody important," Alice replied smiling up at us. I didn't miss the fact that her smile seemed to grow a little when she looked at Jasper, nor his in reply to hers. These two were sickening.

"_God_, you two are sickening," Rosalie said with obvious disgust. _Fuck,_ I didn't like the fact that I was operating on a similar wavelength to this woman. She was a bitch! "Think you two can pull yourselves away from each other long enough to look at the menus? I wasn't joking when I said I was hungry."

Conversation, mostly supplied by Alice, began while we decided what to order and gave our requests to our waiter. His eyes seemed particularly drawn to Rosalie but given the fact I was less than interested in her I couldn't have cared less. He was eyeing me with some suspicion, obviously assuming I was her date as Jasper and Alice were clearly attached, but I just shrugged and went back to looking at my menu.

By the time he'd left our table Alice had shot-off another super-speed text and flung her phone back into her tiny purse. She was considerably more..._energetic_, once she'd got rid of her phone and was working really hard to keep talking. I was a little bit confused by her behaviour but when she had to take a pause in order to have a drink of water it became obvious why she'd been trying to keep conversation on her.

"So, Edward," Rosalie had begun, taking advantage of Alice's momentary pause. "You're pre-med right?"

"Yes..." I said warily.

"_Rosalie,_" Alice hissed in a warning tone at the same time I replied.

"What, Alice? I'm only trying to work out why our friend Edward here would be taking a Lit class if he was pre-med," she said, looking at Alice before turning back to me with a smirk on her face. "Why is that Edward?"

"Maybe I'm interested in Literature?" I replied coolly. Apparently this was the wrong thing to say because the smirk on the she-devil's face just grew.

"Maybe... but we both know that isn't true, don't we? It couldn't have anything to do with a '_beautiful brunett' _could it?" She asked with extra emphasis on the 'beautiful brunette' bit.

_Fuck! _How the fuck did she know? Maybe she really _was _a she-devil...

"Uh..." I stuttered, losing my calm facade for a moment.

"I know you!" Jasper suddenly cried, staring at Rosalie. "You're Royce's girlfriend! He bought you to our party!"

"You're _Royce King's _girlfriend?" I exclaimed, unable to hold back my laughter. "Jesus Christ..."

Royce King was the biggest fucking jerk I'd ever met. He was extremely rich but had absolutely no modesty about it and treated everyone around him like shit. I also knew his last few girlfriends and was well acquainted with the type of woman he went for. I'd thought Rosalie was a bitch, I hadn't realized she was a gold-digger as well. Anyway, Royce was just a grade A tool and although I may have found Rosalie slightly intimidating up to this point, now I knew this about her there was no way in hell that she was going to scare me. Hence my laughter.

"And what, may I ask, is so funny?" She asked, rounding on me, barely containing her anger.

"Oh, nothing, nothing," I said airily, waving my hand. "I'd just given you a little more credit than to be with someone like Royce King."

"Well for your information I'm _not _with him," she seethed.

"You're not?" I asked, my laughter cutting out. She was starting to look really angry and my feelings about her not scaring me anymore were rapidly evaporating.

"No. Let's just say I got a glimpse of the real Royce King and realized what a huge fucking jerk he was," she spat.

Well my estimation of her went back up with that. She was still a bitch, don't get me wrong, but at least the girl had standards. She could obviously look after herself as well, if you catch my drift?

"Calm down, Rosalie," Alice urged from beside her.

"I am calm," she said through gritted teeth, before continuing in a normal tone, "I just don't want people to think I'm associated with a low-life like him."

"I don't blame you," I said, taking a drink from my glass of wine.

"Yeah, me neither," Jasper agreed. "The guy's a douche. What did you see in him in the first place?"

"No idea," she sighed. "Anyway, that's enough about me. Though if you recognized me from your party then you might be able to remember what I may have overheard from this one?" She asked, nodding her head at me.

Yeah, I love it when people talk about me like I'm not here. It's fucking awesome.

"Ah..." Jasper sounded, his face lightening in realization.

"What?" I demanded, rounding on him. "What's Blondie talking about?"

Rosalie snorted at the nickname, non-concerned because she clearly had something big on me.

"Do you not remember anything that you were saying at the party the other night? The one we had at your place?"

"Jasper I was completely fucked, what do you think?"

"Think really hard..." he said, while Rosalie started cackling again and Alice kept bouncing up in her seat, looking towards the door.

"Fine," I huffed.

_Emmet and Jasper, beer pong, vodka, more beer, more vodka, Victoria's there, lots of people, more beer, me, had an essay to write, essay, lit theory, beer, Bella - _

Bella.

Oh, _fuck._

"HA! Memory caught up with you has it, Eddy?"

"What have you told her?" I asked Rosalie, not bothering to try and worm my way out of it.

"Oh, nothing much. Just how you were whining, more than a little pathetically might I add, about how the 'beautiful brunette' in your 'stupid English class' would never want to talk to you. You know, once she found out about you stalking her."

"I do _not _stalk her," I replied adamantly. I could feel my face turning red through anger and embarrassment. Had she actually told Bella that I stalk her? _Fucking hell. _

"Following her to lectures that you don't need to go to? I don't know what planet you live on Eddy, but here on earth that's called stalking," she said with that familiar smug look.

"I already said, _I don't stalk her_," I said again. It made no difference, she wasn't listening to me.

"You know, you could just _talk _to her. Stalking is a little extreme Eddy, even for me."

I was going to kill her. The urge to kill had never possessed me before, but at this moment in time I totally understood why people did it.

"Hey Alice," Rosalie continued, shifting her attention to her friend. "Remember that creepy guy that used to walk up your street _all _the time? That had a kind of humpback walk? The one I caught looking up through your window?"

"He was _not _looking through my window! But yes, I know who you mean. Can we forget he ever existed please?" Alice replied, shuddering delicately.

"He was _so _looking through your window, _I SAW HIM! _But, whatever, I digress," she said, looking back at me. "My point, Eddy, is that nobody likes a stalker. Just ask Alice." She finished, shrugging her shoulders and looking at me triumphantly.

"Rosalie, stop it. Play nice," Alice said, looking firmly at her so-called best friend.

"Dude," Jasper whispered to me from the corner of his mouth. "I told you that you should have just spoken to the chick months ago."

"Shut the fuck up, Jasper." I hissed.

What the fuck was I going to do? Rosalie had told Bella that I fucking _stalked _her, which I still refuse to say I did. I stumbled across her by complete accident and then it was too late to turn around without looking like a complete idiot. Okay, I _may _have gone a little far on my quest to find out her name but whatever.

That's not stalking, it's called being stealthy. Not to mention resourceful.

Besides I'd already spoken to her now! I was completely ready to talk to her today at the English Office too, but I hadn't bumped into her. Wednesday was going to be the day. I'd finally talk to her, ask her out or..._something. _But no. Rosalie had ruined that for me because Bella was now going to think I was some weirdo that followed her around and watched her through her window. I knew I couldn't wait until Wednesday now. I'd have to find Bella, _stat, _and explain myself.

"Oh thank _God," _Alice breathed out.

"What?" Rosalie asked, before glancing towards where Alice was looking. "Ohhh," she groaned, "what the hell Alice? I was enjoying myself!"

"Exactly, that's what I was afraid of!"

Confused, Jasper and I turned in our seats to look at what Alice had evidently been waiting for.

And there stood Bella. She was wearing a dark blue strapless dress, with her long brown hair in waves around her face. _Fuck _she was so gorgeous. And now that she was here we could get rid of Rosalie and I could try and fix whatever damage had been caused. Excellent.

I started smiling to myself because seeing her here I couldn't _not _smile.

I turned back in my seat and looked at Rosalie's disgruntled face. Ha.

However, Rosalie looked from me to Bella and back again and the smile on my face started to vanish as the smile on hers grew.

"Actually..." she began, seemingly talking to herself, "I can still work with this."

"Rosalie, no –"Alice began, sharply.

Rosalie just smiled at me with an evil glint in her eye and shouted, "Hey Bella! Come pull up a chair between me and Eddy here. We were just having a lovely chat, weren't we?"

This earned her a glare from Alice. Clearly Alice had text Bella when she realised who Jasper had brought along with him and had expected Rosalie to fuck off when Bella turned up. Unfortunately it wasn't to be.

"Were you now?" I heard Bella say in a tight voice as our waiter re-emerged and hastily added a place for Bella on the side of the table. I noticed his eyes lingering on Bella, much the same way they had with Rosalie, but this time I didn't shrug when he glanced at me. I gave that motherfucker a class A cold eyed stare. He got the message and hastily retreated.

_Wow, Edward. You've hardly spoken to the girl and you're already staring down the other men. That's not weird or possessive at all._

"Um, hi," she greeted me, her cheeks colouring slightly as she looked at me.

"Hey," I replied. My voice came out sounding kind of breathless and weird so I hastily cleared my throat (Rosalie found this very amusing) and asked how her hand was.

"Oh, yeah, it's fine. Well, it's not _fine _I had to have five stitches, but, uh, yeah. Yeah it's good," she said in a rush. Her cheeks darkened another shade and she took a deep gulp of the glass of wine Alice had poured for her when she sat down.

Was I making her nervous? I'd be pretty nervous too if I was sitting next to a guy that stalked me.

"Five? Jeez, that's kind of impressive in a klutzy way," I said, smirking at her. I was trying to put her at ease and it seemed to do the trick.

She laughed and replied, "Yeah well, what can I say? It's a talent. Lucky you were there really. You might have noticed but I'm not so good with blood and it was handy having somebody around that knew what they were doing."

"Yeah, real handy," Rose interjected. "It's almost as if you knew we were going to be there..." She trailed off with a pointed look at me.

I laughed nervously before saying, "Well I'm only glad I could help. Maybe try not to cut yourself open with anything tonight though? We wouldn't want our date cut short after all." I threw that last bit in and gave her my best smile to see her reaction.

She started smiling back at me and opened her mouth to say something before Rosalie interrupted and said, "Nope, we wouldn't want that, would we Eddy?"

"Rosalie," Bella said in a sweet voice that I knew wasn't her own, despite our limited time speaking together. "Isn't there somewhere else you'd rather be right now?"

"Not at all, Bella dear," she replied, completely ignoring Bella's huge hint. "They do the _best _steak here. Do you not know me at all?"

"Of course I do," she said at normal volume before muttering under her breath only just loud enough for me to hear, "_that's the_ _problem._"

I laughed out loud before hastily turning it into a cough when Rosalie glared at me.

Thankfully Alice and Jasper decided to come out of their bubble at this point and conversation started to travel around the table as it would during any normal meal. Alice had calmed down a great deal since Bella turned up and aside from dropping a few coded hints about stalking, Rosalie behaved herself for the rest of the meal.

"You study engineering?" Jasper asked in obvious surprise when Rosalie told us her major. To be honest I don't know why he was so shocked. Despite being the devil incarnate, Rosalie was obviously intelligent and I could picture her building a car or some shit with perfect ease.

"Yeah, I do. Why, have you got a problem with that?" She replied to him in a cold voice.

Jasper turned a shade paler and looked towards Alice for, what I assumed, was help. Unlucky for him she merely shrugged and carried on eating her grilled chicken. Yeah, not nice when Rosalie turns on you, is it motherfucker? Let's see how _you_ like it.

"Uh, no. No of course not! I was just _surprised _that someone like you would be doing a degree like that," he stuttered out. As soon as he said it Alice, Bella and I all winced. Poor Jasper clearly had no idea.

"Someone like _me? _And what is 'someone like me' supposed to study?_"_

I was starting to feel bad for the guy. He really didn't mean any offence by what he said and he was just digging himself deeper here. My sympathy for him must have shown on my face because I felt Bella knock her leg against mine under the table and when I looked up at her she winked at me.

_It was totally hot._

But yeah, Bella's wink let me know that Rosalie was just messing with Jasper and I started to see the funny side of it.

"Nothing!"

"Oh, so you think I shouldn't even be in school? That I should study nothing at all? Alice if your new boyfriend has a misogynistic view like this then I may have to re-think my approval of him." This time I could see Rosalie trying to fight off a smile. Jasper, however, was panicking more and more.

"Look, Rosalie, I didn't mean to upset you. I think it's awesome that you're studying engineering! Like, seriously. We should have more engineers! Everyone needs engineers, right?" He glanced nervously at Bella, Alice and I for our approval and none of us could hold it up any more. We all burst out laughing.

"Chill out Jasper! Jeez. You're not as fun as Eddy here. At least he fights back," she said, grinning at me. Could it be? Had I gained Rosalie's seal of approval? "Then again, Jasper hasn't committed any federal offences, so..."

_Fucking bitch._

"What?" Bella said sharply, looking at me but I could see she was smiling. She continued in a teasing tone, "Is there something you're not telling us?"

"Nope," I laughed, tentatively. "I've no idea what Rosalie here is talking about." I'd explain the situation to Bella properly later, but not now in front of everyone.

"Yeah, I didn't mean anything by it, just that Jasper having no federal offences was a good thing," Rosalie shrugged. _Yeah right_. "You know, we don't want to stumble across a stalker, or computer hacker or anything like that."

For some reason Bella stiffened at this comment. Perhaps she was remembering the fact that I was her supposed stalker, but computer hacker? Maybe Rosalie was just weird.

"Computer hacker?" Jasper asked in a confused tone, saving me the trouble.

"Yeah. We wouldn't want somebody secretly finding out everything they could about us would we?" She smiled.

"No, I guess not. Anyway..." He trailed off moving conversation in a different direction.

To be fair, the evening ended up being pretty successful. The food was awesome and the company was even better. I managed to talk to Bella one-on-one a fair few times throughout dinner as well and was relieved to find out I wasn't just attracted to her on a physical level. I mean, my stal- _observations _of her over the last however many months had already pretty much confirmed that in my mind, but still. It was nice to know for sure.

In fact my attraction for her just grew to new levels throughout the night. She was obviously beautiful, but she was also intelligent, funny and really fucking interesting as well. Her relationship with Alice and Rose bordered on hysterical many times over the evening, the three of them were constantly teasing each other and making each other laugh but at the same time you could tell they were really fucking loyal to one another and for all of their jesting I could still feel Bella and Rosalie studying Jasper carefully. I was pretty sure Rosalie and Alice were looking at me the same way. And I didn't mind one bit. _So long as I passed whatever criteria they had and was allowed to take Bella out by herself. _Even thoughBella didn't strike me as the type to blindly follow what her friends thought I still knew how important the 'Best Friend Test' was.

_I didn't want to fail it. _

We started to wrap things up and despite protests from the girl's (aka Rosalie) Jasper and I paid the bill.

"Thank you," Bella blushed at me, as we made our way out of the restaurant. By this point Jasper and Alice had wandered off ahead of us and Rosalie was shouting on her phone to someone.

"Don't mention it," I grinned down at her. "Besides, I'd quite like to count this as an actual date."

"Ugh, do we have to?" She groaned.

Uh, _say what now?_

She must have noticed the expression of my face fall because she quickly continued, "Shit. No. I didn't mean it like that. I just meant that I'd rather if, you and I, you know. Oh god, I'm such an embarrassment."

"Oh!" I said, realization dawning on me. "No, I'd rather we were on our own too! Just, I'm glad you turned up instead of me having to be Rosalie's date all night. Not that there's anything _wrong _with Rosalie," I added hastily, "just that I prefer you. Obviously."

It was my turn to blush and groan in embarrassment. Thankfully Bella just linked her arm with mine and we made our way into the parking lot.

"Good," she chuckled. "If I found out you were actually after Rosalie all this time I'd be pretty pissed, I'm not going to lie."

"After all this time, huh?" I smiled at her, bumping her hip with mine.

"Well –" She began.

"Edward! Is it okay if you catch a ride from Rosalie or Bella? It's just that I drove here and Alice didn't and we want kind of want to head over to _Mama Joy's _for some pancakes before it shuts."

"Uh..." Well, fucking _thanks _Jasper. Talk about putting me on the spot.

"That's fine," Bella chirped suddenly from next to me. I looked at her and her cheeks were turning red again. It was really fucking cute. "Come on, I'm parked over the other side," she said, motioning with her head to the left of the parking lot.

"Oh, thanks. You sure that's okay?" _Extra time with Bella. Alone. Thank you God._

"Totally," she nodded. "See you guys later!"

She grabbed my hand and started pulling me really quickly towards her car.

"Where's the fire?" I jokingly asked her, not bothered at all that she seemed as keen as I felt to get alone.

She rummaged in her purse for her keys before looking back up to face me.

"Do you _want_ to say goodbye to Rosalie?" She asked, lifting one eyebrow.

My nervous glance towards the door of the restaurant was all the confirmation she needed.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," she said laughing, as she pressed the button on her keys unlocking the car before opening her door. "Get in the car, _Eddy._"

OoOoOoOoOoO

**A/N: I would like to say thank you to my best friend who is always my inspiration for Rosalie. I also hope this chapter hasn't made her want steak too badly.**

**I'm back home now, with working internet, which means chapter 7 will be up super soon, as will the next chapter of Porcelain Cement!**

**Remember what I said about the teasers and reviews etc. LET ME KNOW IF YOU HAVEN'T RECEIEVED STUFF!**

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**See you next time my dears!**


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